Buncheong Bottle with Inlaid Peony and Willow Design

This is a typical 15th-century buncheong bottle with a handsome shape and tapered silhouette, decorated with inlaid designs of remarkably modern sensibility. The bottle has lotus bands around the shoulder and near the base, with the central section embellished with a big abstract peony design on the front and back rendered in reverse inlay, or sgraffito, with bold black outlines. In between are white weeping willows executed in linear inlay. The bottle is covered with a lustrous grayish-green glaze. It was fired on sand spurs. The bold abstract patterns attest to amazing creativity and are strongly suggestive of a modern design concept. In terms of vessel form and decorative design, the bottle successfully represents the unique aesthetics of buncheong porcelain, which fully matured around the early 15th century.